"No use waitin' here forever," he grumbled. "I'll go to Reynold's an' get a bite; his wife'll probably have it waitin'." And she saw him turn to the door along which Meg just came tapping. The child hurried to get out of his way. Jim slouched heavily through the room, and out of the house, his big boots creaking as he went.
Jane sat down on the step. Her head ached from the force of the blow. She felt dazed with the suddenness of everything. Little Meg came and sat down beside her, patting Jane's rough hand with her soft palm to attract her attention; then she settled down quietly beside her, her bright head leaning on her mother's apron. Darkness came, but Jane did not stir. Meg had gone to sleep.
Suddenly the crutch beside them slipped and rattled against the wall. Meg woke and cried out with fright. Jane absently took the child in her arms and tried to soothe her, but Meg was thoroughly frightened and refused to be comforted. At length she was quiet and Jane carried her to bed. In a few moments, her baby-fear forgotten, she was again fast asleep. Jane went over to the window and crouched there, bitterness in her heart. Over in the west the shadowy outlines of the trees looked mysterious, aloof, unsympathetic; so did the cold white stars over them. Sympathy seemed to have gone out of everything in the whole world. And Jane leaned heavily on the sill and thought.
For a long time she sat there, until she heard Meg stir restlessly on the bed. Then she rose and looked mechanically towards the Reynolds house. A bright light burned in a lower room, so she knew that her husband was still there, talking over the day's affairs with Farmer Reynolds. Her husband! She felt a sudden shrinking at the mere word. She decided that she hated him, she knew that she hated him, with the pent-up hatred of years. And she shuddered when she thought of to-morrow and the next to-morrow, and all the dull to-morrows that would have to come—and he must be in them all; that was the thought which made her sick and faint. She lay down on the bed beside Meg, merely loosening her waist and uncoiling her hair. Physical weariness brought a dreamless sleep. She woke with a start, after a sleep that seemed to have lasted for centuries. There was strange noises downstairs—gruff, muffled voices, queer shuffling as of heavy boots, and then a sudden scraping against the outer door. With a quick unreasoning fear at her heart, Jane flew down the stairs and out into the kitchen. Some one had lighted the oil lamp there. Her eyes saw at first only a blurred group before her. Her vision cleared gradually, until the blur resolved itself into four men, with alarmed, puzzled faces, who were carrying several boards on which lay something covered with a big coat. Jane held her breath, while the men looked sheepishly at one another. Then she ran to the heap, lifted the coat, and looked down at her husband. His face was hard and set, the jaw projecting; but the usual sneer was gone from his mouth, and his closed eyes gave him an expression of peace. Jane dropped the coat as if dazed and turned helplessly to the men. They, equally helpless, nudged Farmer Reynolds forward to act as spokesman. His big, kindly face was abashed and solemn, his fingers nervously twirled his rough cap.
"It was a stroke, mum," he managed to jerk out at last, "some kind of a fit, Doc says. It carried him right, off, too, quicker'n a wink, an' not a mite o' pain. There he was a-sittin' an' scrappin' like a good feller one minute—an' then his face kind o' went pale, an' over he keeled. First we knew it was him on the floor, clean knocked out." Reynolds was becoming garrulous in his efforts to relieve the embarrassment of the situation, but Jane had already forgotten him. They had laid Jim on the floor and Jane sat down beside him, carefully adjusting his tumbled coat and smoothing the rough hair off his low forehead. She did it all in a calm and matter-of-fact way. The men looked helplessly at one another, while Jane, utterly unconscious of them, continued her ministrations to the dead. Was it a few hours ago or was it many years ago that she had vowed never to call him husband again? She had forgotten—after all, it didn't matter. Nothing really mattered now.
Suddenly there came a tapping down the steps. The stair door was pushed open, and a towsled, barefooted, night-gowned little figure appeared on the threshold. "Mother," Meg quivered, "where are you?" When she saw her mother, she made straight for her, almost tumbling over the crutch in her haste. She threw her arms, lovingly around her mother's neck. Jane started—the queer, dazed look left her eyes, though her cheeks were still pale, save for one long red mark. With a little sob she turned, crushed the child to her, and began to cry.
"Oh, but we did love him, Meg, didn't we?" she sobbed. "And he was good to us, just as good as he knew how to be. Oh, Meg, Meg, if I had only been a better wife to him!"
—Katherine Kurz.
When Terry "Quit"
"Gad! and to think, Jim, that I ever lived on Front street!" The frock-coated, silk-hatted stage manager removed the big black cigar from his mouth, and with a pudgy little finger, on which sparkled a blue diamond of unusual size, he flicked away the ashes. "Though it really was a rather decent sort of a place then, you know." He addressed his companion, a press-agent, first, however, carefully readjusting the cigar so that it should be at such an angle to his lips as to suggest sportiness.